An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
When so much contemporary art is riven with obscurity and angst, it is disorienting, at first, to encounter something as straightforwardly enjoyable as Hockney’s latest exhibition. Aged 88, the artist went out into his garden in Normandy with his iPad to make a visual diary of the year 2020. A hundred or so of the
Nostalgia is often seen as a positive emotion, but the word actually derives from the Greek nostos, meaning “homecoming,” and algos, meaning “pain.” Nostalgia is really a type of homesickness, an ache for something lost. As audiences watch the new trailer for the HBO Harry Potter television series, the algos may hit pretty hard: those tantalizing two minutes are the reminder we need that you can’t catch lightning in a bottle twice.
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) once wrote that “the man who feels himself drawn to philosophy must himself seek out its immortal teachers in the quiet sanctuary of their works.” That’s easier said than done: philosophical classics have a terrible reputation outside ivory towers – as big, boring, difficult books, filled with obtuse theorizing about irrelevant problems, their covers featuring ghastly
I almost spat out my toast (smothered with the As Ever, The Raspberry Spread Trio – “Made To Keep On Hand And Enjoy Often,” $42 – naturally) in pure molten anticipation when I read that my role model in spreading jam to flour, sorry, speaking truth to power, will be hosting a women-only weekend “retreat” in Sydney during her forthcoming
I am not in the habit of bringing viral TikTok recipes here. It is a safe space, away from digestive biscuits submerged in yogurt masquerading as cheesecake, baked oats, or sugary instant coffee whipped up like foam (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, ignorance is bliss). No, here we are in the realm
I loved my mustache. Unfortunately, my fondness for it seemed inversely proportionate to its popularity among my peers. After much unsolicited feedback from friends (“You look like a young Peter Mandelson”) and online strangers (“You look like a 1970s porn star”), I put a poll on my Instagram asking my followers whether or not I
Did Mariah Carey mime or not when she headlined the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Milan? That was the main takeaway from last month’s jamboree. Organizers have since suggested that the US singer did indeed lip-sync to Domenico Modugno’s “Nel Blu, dipinto di Blu” and the song that followed, her very own, “Nothing is Impossible.” “The technical, logistical and organizational complexities of an Olympic ceremony
The human spirit is incredibly resilient really. Even in the depth of our concern over the Israeli-American war against Iran, the worry about what might come next, we can still find time to feel a warm and comforting sense of schadenfreude over the large number of British women with stapled-on lips who are cowering in
The semiotics of clothes, especially royal ones, can be fascinating, sending out powerful messages. Think of the jewel-studded, pearl-strewn portraits of Queen Elizabeth I or Princess Diana’s revenge-chic black dress. As a fashion queen herself (Justine Picardie was editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar for more than seven years and has an acclaimed book on Chanel under
This St. David’s Day weekend, I devote this column to a celebration of the world’s most under-appreciated ethnic group. Under-appreciated, certainly, in the pages of The Spectator, whose editorial policy suffers from a Pictish delusion that its readers are eager to hear of the appointment of a new procurator fiscal in Ayrshire, or political divides
There’s a trend on YouTube at the moment for videos in which older people give advice. They speak directly to camera, frankly and without pretension. One can almost sense the care home staff hovering in the background, coaxing their barely extant charges into making one last testament of their time on Earth. The videos have titles such as “Things I’d
A Real Pain was one of my favorite films of recent years, a tragicomic exploration of family, history, place and identity featuring two Americans in Poland – specifically in Warsaw and Lublin. My wife was also quite smitten – with Lublin as much as the film – and on the back of this began planning a weekend in the eastern Polish
Look out from the balcony of your room at Le Sirenuse and you’ll see the trio of rocks jutting out of the Tyrrhenian Sea that gave the hotel, one of the last true greats in the world, its name. The three jagged islets form an archipelago, which is said by the Greeks to have been
It was the sort of elaborate birthday surprise that Andrew – practical joker and fond of a fart gag – might have arranged to prank a friend. Six unmarked police cars roaring up to the farmhouse where he had been living on the Sandringham estate at the unseemly hour of 8 a.m yesterday. Only these
Elena Velez’s F/W 2026-27 New York Fashion Week show centered on “looksmaxxing”: the internet-inspired pursuit of physical perfection at any cost. The runway presentation examined a generation raised under fluorescent ring lights and the judgment of the social-media algorithm. And she capped the night off with a feature from Clavicular, one of the X algorithm’s
In recent months, much has been made of “FAFO parenting.” Touted as the backlash to “gentle parenting,” the philosophy of “Fuck Around & Find Out” seems to be that children should learn the natural consequences of poor decision-making. While gentle parenting advocates empathy and respect, reasoning and explanation, FAFO parenting dictates that rather than going nine rounds with your small person to
As a general rule, once a city erects turnstiles to tourist attractions which were once free to visit, it is time to go elsewhere. Never more so than in the case of Rome. Last week the Italian capital introduced a €2 charge to visit the Trevi Fountain. Tight-fisted tourists like me will still be able to
Now that the Stranger Things disappointment has died down – slightly – George R.R. Martin and his merry band of Game of Thrones cohorts have recaptured attention in what we must call the Thrones universe. After the warily positive but underwhelming reception that the major spin-off House of the Dragon received, A Knight of the
I’ve been fat and I’ve been thin; I’ve been pretty and I’ve been plain – ugly, even. Throughout this, my self-esteem has stayed generally constant, as if you’re going to base it on something as ephemeral as physical beauty, you’re going to run out of road very quickly indeed. This objective attitude to my own
28 Years Later, Danny Boyle’s ace return to the 28 Days later series, was one of last year’s most pleasant cinematic surprises. Combining serious thrills with creeping suspense and a light dusting of social commentary, it also ended with one hell of a cliffhanger, as its protagonist, Alfie Williams’s young Spike, found himself in the
It’s strange the things that can trigger amity or affection. At the beginning of the capsule/pod coffee-maker craze, when George Clooney, with his come-to-bed eyes, was seducing the world with Nespresso machines, I bonded with my eldest daughter’s Italian boyfriend over the Bialetti Moka pot. Notwithstanding the expense and waste of the capsule coffee makers,
Bonjour and bienvenue to the Clooneys. Gorgeous George, his wife Amal and their eight-year-old twins have been granted French citizenship. The Hollywood actor has long had a deep streak of Europhilia, owning luxury properties in Berkshire and Lake Como, Italy, as well as his pad in Provence. Located near the village of Brignoles, the Clooneys’
I had only been to Fortnum & Mason once before. The first time I went, I wasn’t sure what I was getting in to. I remember that the distinct, pale eau-de-nil (mint green) exterior – its signature color – was framed by cream trim and Georgian sash windows stacked neatly across several stories. It was
Like all men, my dear friend Chris Black is an absolutely terrible person to shop with. He behaves only marginally better than a boy toddler. As we stood on the street outside Fortnum’s, this New Yorker’s greeting to me was, “I’m not really a Christmassy kind of person.” How anyone could say this when they
Teams from two Islamic countries playing in one of America’s wokest cities on the anniversary of Stonewall – what could go wrong?
Inside Roger Goodell’s bid for global power
Now, vague, homogenized curricula require little factual knowledge
The pièce de résistance was roast goose with gravy and potatoes in goose fat
Summer is absolutely the wrong time to get out the smoker
